Contrive
by INMH
Summary: For hc bingo, prompt "Torture", and lover100, prompt "Control". Set during 9.01 "Savior". Zod doesn't waste time in deciding that Tess could be useful.


Contrive

**Rating:** PG-13/T

**Genre:** Hurt/Comfort/Drama/Angst

**Summary:** For hc_bingo, prompt "Torture", and lover100, prompt "Control". Set during 9.01 "Savior". Zod doesn't waste time in deciding that Tess could be useful.

**Author's Note:** UFF, haven't written Tess and Zod together for a while. MORE IS COMING, I SWEAR.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Smallville. It belongs to Alfred Gough, Miles Millar and the CW.

()()

Once Zod is satisfied that Mercer understands her position, he lets her go.

She stumbles back to the bed, rubbing her throat, sullenly defeated. She almost collapses onto it and barely moves. Mercer does not look like a threat, to him or anyone else, but Zod knows better now: She is sneaky and bent on survival, and those two things make her dangerous. He will have a wary eye on her from now on.

When Basqat comes and fetches her for another round of interrogation, Mercer doesn't say a word, doesn't protest, and doesn't fight. She just gets up and hobbles out of the room after him. Neither of them acknowledges Zod in the slightest; Mercer is to be expected, but Basqat's indifference is going to cost him later, Zod will see to that personally.

They're gone for hours. The light from the window shifts and dims, and when it's dark, Faora opens the door and Non brings Mercer in, carrying her because she's apparently too weak to walk; that, or she's deliberately feigning weakness just to make things more difficult for them. Zod suspects it's a mix of both.

Non sets her down on the bed, and Faora doesn't look at Zod. Her gaze is pointed in his direction, but she avoids looking him in the eye. For all of her confusion and anger and frustration, she is uncertain in her rebellion; that is something that will serve to his advantage, Zod thinks.

When they leave and lock the door behind them, Zod stays quiet and listens to the sound of Mercer's pained breathing. It sounds like she might have a broken rib, and when he caught sight of her face when she was brought in, it seemed that they had done more damage to her face as well. He seriously doubts that she's told them anything of use, though; she's too stubborn.

There is, to Zod's sudden realization, an unexpected benefit from this situation: Mercer is neck-deep in whatever events led up to their arrival at this place. Beyond this house, once they are done and have moved on- and they will be done and they will move on, because that is what Zod wants- she could be useful. She could serve a purpose for him, possibly even be an ally- so long as she trusts him.

It was time to take that emotional approach.

"My goodness," Zod says mildly, strolling towards the bed, "They certainly had their fun with you, didn't they?" Mercer doesn't move, but he suspects that it's deliberate rather than her being unconscious or too weak to acknowledge him.

After a moment, Zod climbs onto the bed and reaches forward, gently grasping her shoulder and trying to pull her onto her back so that he can see her better. Mercer resists, and she eventually brings her elbow back to collide with his shoulder; if she had been at the top of her game, she would probably have been fast enough and strong enough to break his nose.

"Now, now," Zod wants to grab her wrist and squeeze until it hurts, to remind her of her place. But that's not a component of the emotional approach. "I'm just trying to help."

"You know what you can do with your help?"

Zod smiles. "That fire of yours is going strong, I see." He leans forward, closer to her ear, and lowers his voice. "Neither of us is in a very good position right now, Miss Mercer. If we're to contemplate some kind of resistance, I need you in relatively good shape."

Zod has no such plans. He doesn't need to resist: He'll wrestle control of his army back in good time, once the opportunity presents itself. But Mercer is a woman with little trust to spare. She does not trust him in the slightest, and will not assume that any kindness on his part is from a genuine desire to be kind- he did, after all, openly admit that his interrogation would have been an exercise in emotional manipulation. Giving her a practical reason for him wanting to help will be better received.

And it is. Mercer hesitates, but then slowly rolls onto her back, body tense with pain. Zod was right, her face is much more heavily bruised than it was when he first got a good look at her before. He doesn't try to touch her just yet. "I can't do much, but I'll do what I can. Are you going to try and choke me again?"

"Possibly." Her eyes are sharp and clear, and her tone is one hundred-percent serious. Mercer can and will attack him if she feels the need to, and Zod sees it more as raw survival rather than stupidity. He admires her a bit for that, as lesser men and women in her position might have broken by now.

Zod can handle her, though. He's savvy to her frame of mind, and his physical condition is much better than hers. He feels along her ribs for breaks, the skin covering her ribs bruised badly enough that any one area fails to stand out. He finds two obvious breaks signaled by Mercer's deep, sharp inhales that end in coughing fits. He clucks his tongue. "Bad, but not severe. Not enough that they'll waste time and resources treating you."

"Good to know." Mercer rasps before shutting her eyes and adjusting herself against the pillows.

Zod thinks for a moment, and then leaves the bed and enters the adjacent bathroom, hunting for a cloth. He finds a white one, wets it, and then brings it back to Mercer. Her eyes are still shut, and when he brushes the cloth against the dried blood on her cheek, they jerk open again. She glares at him as though he'd thrown her to the ground again, and Zod merely cocks an eyebrow and offers the cloth to her. She takes it.

He circles around to the other side of the bed, sitting down again while she flinches and tries to get the worst of the blood and dirt off of her face on her own. Really, it would have been easier if she'd let him do it: She can't see how it looks. Zod lies on his right side and watches her struggle.

"Would you like a mirror? Might be easier to tell what you're doing." Zod smiles when Mercer shoots him an ugly look; his disgustingly innocent tone must have rubbed her the wrong way. "I'm only trying to help."

Mercer's hand drops to her lap, and a tight, icy smile crosses her face. "If you're trying to make me think that you're less of a bastard than you actually are," She says sweetly, but with an undercurrent of cold bitterness, "I'll warn you now that it's not going to work. I'm not that stupid."

"And you've fallen for it before, haven't you?" Zod is gratified to see her go rigid with either anger, shame, or maybe both. "Yes… That's what I thought. Such deep-rooted mistrust usually stems from having it brutally betrayed in the past."

"Shut up."

Zod runs a finger down the side of her face, catching a curl of red hair and twisting it. "How painful it must be," He says, ignoring her demand, "Not being able to put your faith in another. How _lonely_ it must be." Mercer turns and fixes him with an unreadable look.

"You get used to it."

"It's a shame that you had to." Her face is impassive. It's not important that she trust him, not even important that she like him for the emotional approach to work.

Depending on the kind of person he was dealing with, this approach usually yielded one of two reactions: A fool might actually believe he's trustworthy, or- given more time, the right circumstances and some well-placed lies- even those less easily deceived might come to have true faith in him.

But Zod is expecting the second kind of reaction from Tess Mercer, with her stubbornness, intelligence and sheer unwillingness to put faith in him. The second reaction is a sense of… Competition. Those like Mercer, who are accustomed to being deceived and have developed a sense as to when someone is trying to do so to them, become drawn into the power-play. They don't simply _want_ to outsmart him- it becomes their mission. And the more they engage Zod, the more time and opportunity he has to manipulate them and learn their weaknesses.

The really smart ones, the ones who don't have anything to prove, are wise enough not to get involved in the power-play at all. That's when the emotional approach fails, and other methods are usually employed.

And in spite of the contempt that Zod sees in Mercer's eyes, in spite of the fact that she knows he's trying to play her… He can see that the fire has been lit. There are all kinds of reasons as to why people feel the need to _win_, why they feel the need to strive to dominate someone else. Such a desire usually came with a desire for survival that surpassed the average, but it also came with a somewhat contradictory urge to push the limits of what was wise, to rise to a challenge.

Mercer looks like the kind that will push quite a bit.

The door opens, and Zod is off the bed quickly and standing tall. For now, until he's certain that he has his troop's complete allegiance sealed again, Zod will keep Mercer's potential to himself. It's Basqat; he's composed, but Zod can detect the anger in his eyes, his posture.

"Come. Now." He's ordering them both, and Zod's expression goes stormy with indignity and silent fury. "We'll find out once and for all what you both know." Zod hears someone move in the hall, and knows that taking a swing at Basqat, while personally satisfying, will not change anything. Best to see what his men had in mind and go from there.

Zod circles around the bed, and Mercer is still trying to stand by the time he gets there. When he offers her a hand in assistance, he can tell that she's accepting because she has to, because she's in too much pain to do so alone. That obstinate look is still burning in her eyes.

_I don't trust you, we are __**not**__ going to get along, and I am going to screw you over at the first available opportunity_, they say. But he just gives her a slight smile and looks away. The seeds are sown, and for now, Zod is satisfied.

He looks forward to the game.

-End


End file.
